{"id":23289,"date":"2012-10-29T07:09:46","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T12:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=23289"},"modified":"2013-02-05T17:36:39","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T22:36:39","slug":"live-dead-can-dance-concert-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2012\/live-dead-can-dance-concert-review\/","title":{"rendered":"LIVE! | Dead Can Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

October 26, 2012 The Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom —<\/h3>\n

\"Dead<\/p>\n

Six years between tours and sixteen years between albums is enough for a whole generation of fans to start forgetting that peculiar scent of bombast mixed with frailty Dead Can Dance have been wearing throughout their career. But this show at the Albert Hall brought all of it back \u2013 the ostentatious, but at the same time pitilessly cold vocal gestures of Lisa Gerrard, which make your heart freeze and your mind lift up, the nonchalance with which they engage in cultural appropriation \u2013 from Arabic vocal mannerisms, to their use of ethnic instruments \u2013 and the easy-to-digest interpretations they give to traditional music. DCD may be a dubious pleasure for connoisseurs of Eastern cultures, but for a wider audience they remain a stunning, bewildering mixture of things that are as remote as possible from everyday realities, and the immediately accessible presentation. <\/p>\n

\"DeadThe main focus throughout the evening stayed on Gerrard\u2019s rich contralto \u2013 the main draw of this act, which would still have been the case even if the band\u2019s songwriting or instrumental chops where more advanced. DCD\u2019s layered sound and lavish arrangements make up for their somewhat limited instrumental technique, but it\u2019s precisely this combination of carefully constructed soundscapes and Gerrard\u2019s voice which cuts right through them that brings it all in focus.<\/p>\n

On the one hand it is quite staggering how cold and impersonal Gerrard sounds even during the most dynamic songs, but you soon realise that what she conveys isn\u2019t about her own triumphs or tragedies, but transmission of things that are eternal and archetypal. Her purpose is to tap into the collective consciousness instead of conveying her personal realities. And maybe it\u2019s this refusal to operate on the ordinary human plane that leads to the band\u2019s inability to write truly great melodies. But songwriting is not their main goal, and at times their communication with the primeval is so convincing (as it was during \u201cNierika\u201d this evening) that you begin to realise how inappropriate it is to apply average pop band requirements to Dead Can Dance. <\/p>\n

But as if to add even more variety to the proceedings, high points tonight where interlaced with low points. One of the latter was \u201cOpium\u201d from the new record Anastasis. Sung by Brendan Perry, it carried a whiff of boredom, failing to arrive at the depths or subtleties of the melancholy it aimed to portray. Maybe it\u2019s because Perry can be a casual vocalist at times, or simply because the weak melody didn\u2019t carry out the initial promise of a soundtrack to self-obsession. But you have to be a true obsessive to convey obsession, or a true narcissist to find beauty in it, and Perry isn\u2019t quite either of those things. <\/p>\n

\"Dead<\/p>\n

An hour-and-a-half of the main set, and then three (that\u2019s right, three) encores, however, spoke volumes if not of narcissism, then of how the band structures its shows these days for maximum PR effect. But perhaps they needed to hear the sold-out Albert Hall go nuts in between their re-appearances on stage to get pumped and hit their highest point. \u201cDreams Made Flesh\u201d during the first encore became the apex of the show. Going beyond her usual emotional range Gerrard \u2013 without any rollbacks \u2013 assumed what in ancient times has been the role of a priestess, tapping right into the depth of the twilight world between the conscious and the unconscious. <\/p>\n

\"Dead<\/p>\n

A revelatory moment, it showed that Dead Can Dance deserve all the kudos on today\u2019s popular music scene simply for not faltering in the face of the shadow. And at this point their songwriting, their various \u2013 and often superficial \u2013 cultural appropriations, and their striving for accessibility cease to matter. What matters is their courage in the face of the unknown. <\/p>\n

Set List:
\n1. Children of the Sun
\n2. Anabasis
\n3. Rakim
\n4. Kiko
\n5. Lamma Bada
\n6. Agape
\n7. Amnesia
\n8. Sanvean
\n9. Nierika
\n10. Opium
\n11. The Host of Seraphim
\n12. Ime Prezakias
\n13. Now We Are Free
\n14. All in Good Time
\nEncore:
\n15. The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove
\n16. Dreams Made Flesh
\nEncore 2:
\n17. Song to the Siren (Tim Buckley cover)
\n18. Return of the She-King
\nEncore 3:
\n19. Rising of the Moon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai – Senior Columnist — October 26, 2012 The Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom — Six years between tours and sixteen years between albums is enough for a whole generation of fans […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6816],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-arcconrvw2012"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}